Ordinary World Extraordinary Girl
by Gruaigrua
Summary: Martha thinks she's coping with what happened during the year that never was. Her friends think differently... Please R'n'R!
1. Chapter 1

Ordinary World. Extraordinary Girl (1/2)

Martha Jones knelt before The Master on the flight deck of the Valiant. Her heart raced in time with the countdown that would reveal a plan hatched a year ago on that very bridge.

"Such a disappointment, this one…" The Master gloated. Martha allowed him his insult. She had a year to come to terms with her feelings for The Doctor and the seemingly unfair comparisons to her predecessor, Rose Tyler, lost forever to a parallel dimension and missed by both the Doctor and Jack. He prattled on, to a captive global audience and mid flow, Martha laughed. The Master hadn't a clue! Traipsing the world looking for the only weapon in existence that could kill him? Her reaction caused him to stop. "It doesn't matter. I've got her exactly where I want her."

_Other way around, pal! _Martha thought. She took her time explaining the story, ever mindful of the countdown as she tried to keep the Master distracted until Zero. "I told them if everyone thinks of one specific word at one time… Right across the world, one word… one thought at just the right moment."

Instead of puzzlement, the Master smiled. "My Archangel network? A telepathic field." Martha's face dropped. He wasn't supposed to know. How could he have known? "Everyone across the world thinking the same thing at the same time." He had that condescending tone in his voice and a gloating grin on his face as the countdown hit single digits. "And that one word? _Master_." Martha stood, horrified. The countdown hit Zero and the Master started to glow with unlimited power generated by billions of people thinking and chanting his name.

"No… This is _wrong_. It's not supposed to be like this!" Martha screamed at him.

The Master waved a hand around the room. First, Martha's family were turned to burning ash, then Jack. The Doctor, tiny and Yoda-like in his cage wasn't spared the carnage. Everyone around her obliterated by a manically laughing monster… And then The Master turned his gaze to Martha. "Thank you." He grinned at her. "First you freed me, Martha Jones, then you made me a _God._" His hand reached out and stroked her cheek, the skin searing red hot before turning charcoal black.

She gasped as the burning spread down her neck, her torso, her arms. Watching flesh turning to ash…

"No." Martha jerked awake. Not quite '_sitting up, screaming from a nightmare_' beloved of horror films… nothing quite so dramatic. Her heart continued to race as a trembling hand reached out to check the time on her alarm clock. 3.15am. Two straight hours without waking up, which was an improvement. It hand been close to 18 months since Martha Jones had enjoyed a full night's sleep. To all but a handful of people, it was seen as 6 months because 12 of them no longer existed. A year of horror and hardship obliterated from the minds of the populace when the Paradox righted itself. _Blissful ignorance_ Martha thought and for a moment, she hated ever single one of them because they lived free of the memories that plagued her dreams.

When everything had returned to "normal", Martha threw herself into her studies. Three months of hard graft to take her mind of, well, everything that wasn't her studies. She passed, of course. Not as high a mark as she would have liked, but under the circumstances, it was impressive. The job offer from Jack to work with Torchwood in Cardiff followed within a matter of days and Martha had turned it down. It was too far away from her family. Francine argued that if she was still travelling with the Doctor, she'd be even further away.

"Yes," Martha said with a strained tone. "but if I was needed here, I could be back within minutes from the TARDIS. Virgin Rail might take a bit longer."

"Martha, it's not that we don't need you." Francine smoothed a stray hair from Martha's face. "But you need to leave for your own sake. You won't talk to us about what happened to you and you need to stop seeing us as your problem to fix and go back to seeing us as your annoying, overbearing family that you can't wait to be rid of once you've graduated." She finally raised a smile from her middle child. "You've graduated, Martha. You're a doctor with a great job offer. Now please be a good girl and run away from home!"

It hadn't taken long for Martha to find her place in Torchwood. The team, dysfunctional as they were, accepted her into their numbers and she enjoyed the work… She especially enjoyed working with Jack, who had been so helpful in getting her settled with her meagre personal possessions in a beautiful apartment that came with the job. There were a few items that hadn't been completely destroyed in the explosion at her old flat and pride of place in her new home was a rescued metal picture frame. Originally it was pretty and decorative with silver coils made to look like vines weaving around a trellis. But now, the bottom left-hand corner was mangled and discoloured after melting. New glass had been put in, and the family photo, taken when Martha was 7, was copied again from the original. It couldn't have cost more than £20 and Jack even offered to replace it as a housewarming gift, but Martha wouldn't hear of it. It was tarnished and damaged, but still standing… a bit like Martha herself. Instead, he opened a bottle of really good red wine and shared it with her. They'd had an easy start to their friendship on Malcassairo and when it all went to hell in a hand basket, he had been an ally, a trusted confidante. Jack had spent a year with her family and kept them going and for that, she would be eternally grateful. It wasn't that she was in love with him, or anything like that, but she did enjoy a bit of a flirt with him now and again. It seemed to be Jack's modus operandi. Martha suspected it was his coping mechanism. It had her coping mechanism of "ignore it and hope it goes away" beat hands down… but it couldn't be ignored for long.

It was heading on for 4am and Martha Jones was beyond tired. A crèche had been infected by an alien organism. Her colleague Owen Harper was confident that they could come up with an antidote before any of the children were seriously affected by it, but it was taking a long time. Owen had put his head down for a couple of hours, at Martha's suggestion, while she monitored the experiments. It was inevitable that she nodded off at the desk, her head resting on her folded arms. Not long after that, the nightmare started. First the twitching, then the whimpering. Jack had been keeping an eye from his office, not minding that she'd fallen asleep. What he _did_ mind was that she seemed caught up in a bad dream. He quietly left his office and went to the heart of the Hub where Martha was and stooped down beside her.

"Martha?" He whispered, gently placing a hand on her shoulder,

"No!" Martha's eyes bolted open and she shoved Jack hard, back to the ground. "You're not real. You're dead."

Jack quickly realised that Martha was still asleep and was having a sort of waking nightmare. He spoke gently, as he rose from the floor. "It's okay, sweetheart." Placing one hand on her neck and the other around her waist, he drew her into a secure hug. "You can wake up now." He felt her jerk against his chest and try to pull away from him, but he kept his grip on her. "It's alright Martha. You're safe, okay?" He felt her arms move around his waist and her head burrow into his shoulder. From the shake in her shoulders, he could tell she had started to cry. "Talk to me Martha, tell me what's going on in your head."

"No." Came the muffled reply. "It's not fair to dump my issues on you when you've got your own to deal with."

"And I'm dealing with them. You're very obviously not." Jack pulled back to look her in the eye. "You have to talk to someone before it either kills you or drives you round the twist."

"Because telling a shrink about a year that never happened when the world was being systematically destroyed by the British PM is not a fast track to the local loony bin!" Martha rolled her eyes and released herself from Jack's embrace.

"Who said anything about talking to a shrink? _Talk to me_."

"I can't. I'm not adding my traumas to yours when it was all my fault in the first place."

"_What_?"

"It's okay. It doesn't matter." Martha smoothed down her lab coat and stood up straight. "I'm fine." She hunched over a nearby microscope. "I need to check the results on these. There's some very sick children waiting on a cure." The walls were up. Jack knew there was no point in pursuing it, for the moment.

"Sure." He said, adopting the same business-like tone as Martha. "Let me know when you have a workable vaccine." And as much as it killed him to do it, he left her to her work. The Martha Jones working for him was a shadow of the brilliant, feisty, resourceful woman whose first instinct was to resuscitate when she found Jack dead outside the TARDIS. It had been a rare pleasure to come back to life looking into those beautiful, expressive eyes and seeing a smile that could light up a room. The eyes seemed darker and the smile a lot less frequent since they defeated The Master.

Back in his office, Jack made a phone call. The first time he had dialled this number, he thought he was ringing Martha to offer her a job, unaware that she had given her phone to the Doctor…

"Martha!" the Doctor exclaimed, delighted to hear from her.

"Um, no." A decidedly male voice said. "It's Jack."

"Jack!" The Doctor exclaimed in the same happy tone.

"Why have you Martha's phone?"

"She gave it to me."

"Why?" Jack asked.

"So we could stay in touch." The Doctor replied like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Has she called you?"

"Um… No. Not yet."

"She passed her exams." Jack said. "Martha's now a doctor, Doctor."

"_Doctor Doctor_, heh. I like that!"

Jack had been surprised at how serious the call had gotten after that, with both talking openly about how they were getting on. The next call couldn't have been more different. Just one simple exchange.

"She needs you."

"I'm on my way."

True to his word, The Doctor arrived within minutes leaving the TARDIS parked in its usual spot on Roald Dahl Plas, absorbing power from the Rift. Jack quietly left the Hub and fished his key from around his neck. It slotted easily in the lock and let him in. "How's my girl?" Jack said quietly, looking around the TARDIS' console room and placing a gentle hand on one of the coral struts. "You look great. He better be looking after you properly."

"That's what I was going to say!" The Doctor smiled emerging from under the console. He strode to Jack and embraced him tightly. "Captain."

"Doctor." Jack revelled in the hug. "Much as I'm enjoying this, we have something else to take care of."

(TBC)


	2. Chapter 2

Ordinary World. Extraordinary Girl (2/2)

Martha rubbed her eyes. She couldn't believe how stupid she had been to let herself nod off like that. At least it was Jack who had found her and not Owen who was still asleep somewhere. There was still half a pot of Ianto's coffee nearby. A couple of minutes in the microwave and it would be perfectly hot and drinkable and would keep her going until she could get out and sleep in her own bed and weather the recurring nightmares in private.

Martha watched the large mug spin around on the microwave's turntable unaware of the figure leaning against the door frame behind her.

"What's up, Doc?" The familiar voice startled Martha out of her reverie. The Doctor smiled warmly at her. "I've _always_ wanted to say that!"

"Oh… Hello." Martha said flatly. "What are you doing here?"

"Did you know that today is_ Free Hugs Day_ and I've dropped by to give you yours." He wrapped his arms around her, enveloping her in his tall frame. Martha's body stiffened, the reaction unlike any he'd ever had from her before. She was usually so eager and welcoming in her embrace.

"At 5 in the morning?" Martha used the excuse of checking her watch to quickly extricate herself from him.

The Doctor was somewhat thrown by her tone. "I'm refuelling the TARDIS and I thought I'd drop in to say hello… I saw the lights on. Besides, who keeps time in a time machine?" His awkward attempt at conversation was abruptly stopped by the microwave beeping. Martha moved back to the far side of the room to get her coffee. It was obvious from her body language that she wanted to be nowhere near him. "Congratulations, by the way, _Doctor_ Martha Jones." His grin was met with silence, barely a reaction from her. He had half expected her to jump over the table that separated them and into his arms. Now it was a convenient barrier. The "happy reunion" route hadn't worked on her. Time to be more direct. "You never rang. You gave me your phone, but you never rang."

Martha shrugged. "I didn't need you for anything."

The words stung. "I didn't think it was just for _in case of emergencies dial D for Doctor._ I thought you'd…"

"What? Ring and invite you round for tea? I've been kinda busy studying and working. Haven't really had the chance." She pottered around the kitchen, putting milk and sugar in the coffee. "By the way, how's the Universe? Picked up a new travelling companion yet? Is she blonde?"

"Stop, Martha."

"Stop what, Doctor? Carrying on with my life as normal as I try to forget what happened, like the rest of planet got to?" Her hands were on her hips and her head was cocked to the side. "Why don't you go back to ice skating on the frozen lakes of Koor-Haan. That way we can avoid this little heart to heart and I can get back to my job." Martha brushed past the Doctor without even looking at him and into the corridor. Jack was standing a few feet from her and from the look on his face, Martha knew _exactly_ how the Doctor had come to be in Cardiff at five in the morning and it had nothing to do with refuelling the TARDIS. "You had no right!" She yelled at him.

"He's trying to help, Martha. We both are."

Martha spun around to face the Doctor. "If you really want to help, go back to the hospital the day we met and say '_goodbye and thanks_'. _Don't_ turn up after Leo's party and _don't_ offer to take me on board the TARDIS. That way I'll never be in the position to know what a Chameleon Arch is, or that a Timelord can store his essence in a fobwatch."

"Martha, you know I can't do that." The Doctor said sadly.

"It makes perfect sense, Doctor. That way, I'll never bring the watch to Professor Yana's attention, he'll never open it and The Master will never manifest." Martha stopped to draw breath in order to fight back the tears that were forming. "That way, my family, Jack and you won't have to go through… Well, you don't need me to remind you what happened. You could forget you ever met me and I could have my ordinary life back." She knew it was wishful thinking (_no crossing into established events)_ but it seemed like the simplest, most obvious solution. "If I'd just left well enough alone." She slumped against the wall, staring at the floor. "If I'd said nothing about that watch, Professor Yana would have taken his people to Utopia and they'd have lived happily ever after. But _noooo_! I _can't_ leave well enough alone, so he opened his watch because I drew attention to it and…" Martha faltered. "All that death… All that cruelty… All because of me."

The Doctor was shocked into silence at her revelation.

"He was another Timelord. Do you honestly think The Doctor _wouldn't_ have wanted to know?" Jack said edging close enough to place a hand on her shoulder. "Martha, that watch would have been opened and the Master would have manifested anyway."

"We'll never know though, will we Jack." Martha stood up and looked him in the eye. "You can talk about all the _what ifs _you like, but it won't change _one iota_ of what happened."

"I'm so sorry." The Doctor said quietly. "There should be statues of you for what you did… Or a commemorative portrait hanging in a gallery. At the very least there should be a street named for you… but there's absolutely nothing. Nothing to indicate that the world needed saving in the first place and that's because of _you,_ Martha Jones." He reached out his hand. "Come with me." She was initially hesitant, but took his hand.

The Doctor brought her outside. A cold breeze whipped her hair around her face as dawn broke over the bay. "Do you see that sunrise?" Martha nodded as a golden orange glow appeared low on the horizon. Clouds had a deep mauve tint against a sky that was turning from black to blue. "That's there because of you. Had you not inspired people with your story, that sunrise wouldn't exist because there would have been no planet left. Because of you there are sunrises and Tuesdays and traffic jams and bad coffee in vending machines. Life goes on in all it's wonderful mundane ordinariness because you saved the world." He took her by the shoulders and squeezed tight. "And don't ever labour under illusion that there's anything ordinary about you, Martha. You are extraordinary. There's not many who would have done… who _could_ have done what you did." He kissed her forehead. "If I could go back, I would, you know that."

Martha nodded, tears leaving a cold trail down her face.

"I could make you forget it." The Doctor said quickly. "I could take the memories so they wouldn't trouble you anymore. And not just you…"

"No." Martha said. "I had an idea that you could and that's why I hadn't called, why I was so rude to you back there. I knew if I saw you, I'd ask for you to take all the nightmares and memories away… And I knew you'd gladly do it because that's the kind of man you are. You'd take our memories of it and you'd be the only one left who knew and I wouldn't burden you with that. It's not something you should carry alone."

Jack watched from a distance as Martha and The Doctor talked. He couldn't hear them, but from their body language, it was clear that they were making up. After a couple of minutes, The Doctor hugged Martha tightly and then headed back to the TARDIS. Before closing the door behind him, the Doctor saluted Jack. They'd speak again soon, he was sure of it. Once the TARDIS dematerialised, Martha made her way back over to Jack. Without a word, she stood on tiptoe, wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly. "What's this for?" He asked, his hands caressing her back as he held her close.

"Free Hugs Day." Martha said. "I hadn't given you yours."

Jack sent Martha home soon after that using the excuse that she was too tired to be useful. It was fully bright by the time she returned to her apartment, but after years of shift work in preparation to be a Doctor, Martha knew she'd be asleep a few minutes after she went to bed… for how long, she had no idea.

Four hours later, Martha awoke with a start after another vivid, horrific nightmare. She took a couple of slow deep breaths to calm her rapid pulse and then picked up her mobile phone. "Hello, Jack?"

"Martha, is everything alright."

"No, it's not. I… I think we both need to talk."

"I'd like that."

_Fin_


End file.
